Posted from 2 addresses as Jeff Wilson, Jeffery Wilson clueland.com, Jeffery Wilson
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I hadn't thought of that- a self portrait once removed! That would explain why their descriptions look alike. But it makes Fechin and Casdoe's dad about 100 years old, when the d…
17 Jan 2011, 17:21
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They would, but not more than the Author would consider repectful of the Creator. But there seems to be something of a tradition of enslaving green men as captive oracles. And w…
17 Jan 2011, 06:36
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Not exactly; Jane was straight in both self-identified sexes. Dan swung both ways.…
17 Jan 2011, 06:23
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They function, but they have marginal impact on selection at best. particular features don't have to be advantageous , only that the overall incremental change is positive. The g…
17 Jan 2011, 06:15
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"...like every man whose foot is in a trap." So he admits he will lie to get out of a trap, and the algae explanation comes when he is hopeful Severian will help him get out. How…
17 Jan 2011, 04:51
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*Bow-chicka-bow-wow!* David Gerrold did it first...and nth.…
17 Jan 2011, 04:36
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Not at all. Casdoe's dad calls Severian "Becan" even though he knows it is not the right name at least some of the time, so we know he gets names wrong some times, right? In fact…
17 Jan 2011, 04:34
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this includes not wanting to have sex with her. "'There is only one living woman I desire, and no man but myself.'" Presumably the only woman is Agia, and getting it on with Dari…
17 Jan 2011, 02:29
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He might be bleached out from lack of light, the way grass is when something is left covering it for a few days, then removed. On his second appearance, he is merely jade colored…
17 Jan 2011, 02:17
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Sev uses the White Fountain power before he knows he's using it, so awareness is not required. His connection seems to be established by the light shining on him from the sky, so…
17 Jan 2011, 01:45
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Sev remarks on his nice, white teeth, so he is at least partially equipped to prey on animals and fruit.…
17 Jan 2011, 00:53
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perhaps not; an evergreen could become animated a few weeks a year, or a few months if it could deploy broad leaves for sun and furl them for activity, perhaps like a peacock's t…
17 Jan 2011, 00:49
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Its nice to find an answer that works with the story and with the "real world", or at least reduce things to the single Wellsian impossibility.…
16 Jan 2011, 23:35
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No. Severian's time travel is powered by the White Fountain and he still needs sustenance. It seems that walking the Corridors of Time actually requires walking or other freedom …
16 Jan 2011, 23:33
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Even at 100% conversion efficiency, each day a person-sized patch of sunlit earth receives about 1/30 of the energy a normally active person takes from a day's worth of food. May…
16 Jan 2011, 23:26
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Whoops! I guess there's only one cloisonne. Still, if a cloisonne of a person of no particular interest to the pawnbroker is worth "a bit of money", having one of done of a speci…
16 Jan 2011, 23:10
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Inire and the Cumaean are not widely known to be nonhuman, outside their circle of acquaintances. "'Just a little man he is, with a wry neck and bow legs.'" This is possible in p…
16 Jan 2011, 22:51
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That is a shame, given how moving and profound THE ROBE for example is, esp since Jesus' parables made it into the scriptures themselves.…
16 Jan 2011, 20:09
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Not the inn-keeper but rather his employee, Ouen.…
16 Jan 2011, 19:44
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Preaching to the choir, though I hadn't posted about this since you were yclept bsharp. If it does, that coming from the the White Fountain seems sufficient. Maybe. They are bot…
16 Jan 2011, 19:37
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She does come from a dwindling family, but given the technology demonstrably available, the only real reason Sev + Valeria don't have children is that one or more of Sev, Valeria…
16 Jan 2011, 18:43
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By ending the cycle, he raise the stakes from yearly prosperity to sempiternal posterity: all or nothing brinksmanship? Ormuzd makes Ahriman the same sort of proposition.…
16 Jan 2011, 18:37
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Didn't Sev pointedly reject Daria? Yea and no; "cacogen" is Urthspeak for Bug Eyed Monster, and hierodules wear scary monster masks when they visit Urth undercover. Apheta, being…
16 Jan 2011, 18:23
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I got the impression that they were doing okay until she died, then he was okay for a while more until he went into a depression and ended up working as a boatman so he could kee…
16 Jan 2011, 17:04
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It can escape the moon moving rearward, going into an elliptcial orbit, I considered that last, but the infalling gas regains the kinetic energy so when it returns it heats the a…
16 Jan 2011, 11:47
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It occured to me at lunch today that a problem with the open air atmosphere schemes, even ones that last thousands of years between refills, is that they take half to 3/4 the mas…
14 Jan 2011, 20:46
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It makes sense to not bother asking people to destroy the world if their kids are on it, esp when you have the freedom to move in time to the ones who don't have kids. In this ve…
14 Jan 2011, 16:24
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That's what I'm getting at, it was probably way, way before galaxy spanning days- but late enough that space travel had become commonplace and space travelers like Purn would be …
14 Jan 2011, 00:15
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No one, but the implication was that if Typhon could propel the Whorl to lightspeed with leftovers of the galactic empire, then whoever needed to make the moon habitable could ha…
13 Jan 2011, 22:47
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Maybe not. Typhon was working with the dregs of a culture that once spanned galaxies and may have had to fit the hubristic project to what he could salvage; a single surplus engi…
13 Jan 2011, 18:49
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It is now, but in SWORD ch XXXII, Sev mentions "Not a glimmer showed upon the waters of the lake, save for the green, reflected light that fell from the myriad leaves of the Fore…
13 Jan 2011, 18:36
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Backing off doesn't make the clouds any less white as you can see in this photo taken from lunar orbit: http://hypertiling.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/nasa-apollo8-dec24-earthri…
13 Jan 2011, 16:46
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Of itself, not really. It's a good place to start, and there's lots of useful references in it, but I can think of at least one of my contributions Mantiss included that turned o…
13 Jan 2011, 15:40
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heh heh heh! Just what you would expect in my many-dome scenario. I'm not ready to agree that the moon could never posses large bodies of standing water; Geoff Landis' article do…
13 Jan 2011, 15:32
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I am not ashamed to admit it never would have occurred to me to google for lunar air pollution. Probably not, but we know he goes to a lot of movies. :)…
13 Jan 2011, 04:28
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I've heard this before, but I have yet to see how the figure was obtained. I cannot find it on the cited website, if that was your intention.…
13 Jan 2011, 01:14
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Those are almost certainly imports from Yesod. Otherwise, if moon-sized force fields were to be had in Briah, it would be a no-brainer to outfit Tzadkiel's ship with one and stop…
12 Jan 2011, 23:42
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The average albedo of green plants in general and the moon are both in the 0.15-0.18 range.…
12 Jan 2011, 23:36
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Why does the terrarium need a thick atmosphere blanket around its sealed vessel?…
12 Jan 2011, 23:29
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I know what you mean. I try to make sure I deal in concepts where the math is correct, but stays "under the hood" for the most part, the way it does in the stories. Though the st…
12 Jan 2011, 23:23
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It's implied that the resources for rocket ship travel are depleted. Space commerce still exists, but it's the "cacogens'" yet more advanced flying saucers and such that handle t…
12 Jan 2011, 17:43
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What does the technology-based power source provide that an enclosed terrarium could not?…
12 Jan 2011, 17:26
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Cite, please?…
12 Jan 2011, 17:14
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A giant mirror, or giant mirrors, like the sails on Tzadkiel's ship. Given F, B, and O also visit him at this time, I would say it is the very same ship. He's exhaling air, and …
12 Jan 2011, 17:13
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You still can't see the *far* side from the earth, due to tide locking. Geometrically, this means you can get 70% visible area greenness with as little as 60% coverage of the n…
12 Jan 2011, 16:55
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There's no physical "dark side" of the moon; all sides are exposed to the sun as the moon rotates.…
12 Jan 2011, 16:17
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Really? I would've said a bit less than half.…
12 Jan 2011, 15:46
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Yes, because stars don't last long enough for their own light to traverse the universe and arrive before they've gone on to non-life sustaining dispositions. The Yesodi's could d…
12 Jan 2011, 15:26
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I think this is likely as well, but it's easy to put it off on the misrembering Rudesind. Too bad there's no intercessor for the similar bad figures given for the Wall and the Sh…
12 Jan 2011, 15:16
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Why would the sun shine less brightly on a smaller body than on a larger one?…
12 Jan 2011, 15:11
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